Increasing relationship quality and satisfaction among couples through delivering relationship education has been a topic of interest for decades, with the 1980s marking the initiation of a dramatic expansion of research in this area. The 1980s also saw the beginning of what was to become a continuing decline in marital quality and satisfaction among first-time married couples (Amato, Johnson, Booth, & Rogers, 2003; Schramm & Harris, 2010). This interest in dyadic couple relationship quality was likely driven by the expanding awareness that quality of marital relationships influences a broad range of positive and negative outcomes; healthy, satisfying marriages provide numerous benefits important to individuals and society, while marital dissolution has a profoundly negative effect (Amato, 2010; Cowan & Cowan, 2005; Harris, Schramm, Marshall, & Lee, 2012; Schramm & Harris, 2010). Furthermore, subjective levels of marital quality and satisfaction are predictive of both marital stability and marital dissolution (Gottman, 1994; Gottman & Notarius, 2000). Couple and relationship education (CRE) interventions have shown mixed results across experimental studies. Moderate effect size improvements have been found across CRE intervention studies in the specific areas of relationship quality and communication skills (Hawkins, Blanchard, Baldwin, & Fawcett, 2008). But how does the delivery of relationship programming impact the relationship quality, communication skills, and well-being of those who actually deliver the programming interventions? The purpose of this study was to assess associations between relationship quality and satisfaction, intimate partner consensus, and relevant contextual factors among those who deliver relationship education programming in Florida through the SMART Couples Project, a federally funded healthy marriages and relationships grant. Initial mixed methods results indicate that “teaching a person to fish” through delivering relationship education programming generally has a positive impact on relationship quality, communication skills, and well-being among those who deliver the programming. Specific implications for impact of relationship education delivery on those who deliver the intervention are proposed.

Relationship Marketing is relatively unknown in construction, but is widely researched in non project disciplines and applied similarly. Relationship marketing as a sub-component of marketing provides valuable and reliable tools that a manager can use to enhance a service that is being provided to a range of clients. It provides a better solution to client interaction than traditional marketing due to its focus on mutual attainment of common goals. The purpose of relationship marketing is to attract new clients and ensure that existing clients are looked after in a collaborative engagement where objectives are identified and mutual goals set. Overall collective aims of venture participants are identified and achieved. The aim of the research is to identify key relationship factors that should be considered when selecting a construction service. This is achieved through a number of steps that include: examining the principles of marketing and its association with RM; examining alliance principles and construction RM principles, supply chain and service selection issues and relationship development constructs; interviewing a number of construction actors to theorise issues that are important to construction, its connections and relationships. Other activities include interviewing a substantial body of construction actors that have experience of Alliance projects and are able to comment on the relationship development process and observe activities undertaken at a number of alliance development and alliance lessons learned (outcome) workshops. The research identifies methods that enable relationships to be developed and a model that gives buyers the ability to pre-qualify and select contractors that are committed to providing value is provided. The main findings from the research show that RM has many attributes that should be applied to construction; indeed several aspects of RM are currently being applied in alliance projects. The particular form that RM takes in alliance projects is in the relationship development of the stakeholders. These stakeholders eventually become the virtual team who manage the project. In particular the development of trust, commitment and mutual goals in alliance projects form a close parallel with similar constructs in RM. Four themes were discovered to make a difference in relationship development in construction. They were the process of the relationship development workshop; the underlying attributes associated with the development process, in particular trust, trust building, commitment and communication; the outcome for the team; and organisational issues associated with individuals in the relationship development workshops. The particular contribution that the research identifies is in the various models of relationship development that have been constructed throughout the research period. The first, an interim model, identifies a marketing continuum that forms a framework and provides an insight into the ways in which RM may reduce stress and reasons for conflict in a construction project team. At the same time the model shows how increased trust, commitment and satisfaction for the stakeholders, together with value adding potential in the supply chain, may be attained with the use and application of RM principles. The second interim model builds on the first model and applies an organisational focus to the original project based model described earlier. Ongoing relationships based on project success are identified. A third and final interim model identifies the association between process (project) and product success with transactional and relationship marketing. The model identifies how a RM approach provides a long term project success that may be translated to marketing success in a particular industry sector through ongoing relationships. Finally, building on the aforementioned interim models a construction relationship development model is proposed. It is suggested that these models develop and contribute to emerging theory on RM in a project environment and its application to construction. The models also contribute to relationship development theory applied to project driven and temporary organisations. These temporary organisations are particular to the construction industry and they stand to benefit greatly from this research.

A typical problem with relationship management in a B2B environment is that implementing companies often see the relationship only from their own perspective. In other words, the supplier decides which customer is worth treating as a key customer, without involving the customer in this decision, or vice versa. As a result, even resource-consuming key account customers might move to competitors if they do not value the relationship in the same way as the supplier and see an opportunity to save costs by switching sources. This study develops a better understanding of value in B2B relationships. It investigates the segmentation methods currently used in relationship management and develops a new approach that brings the value perspectives from buyer and seller together. The major contribution of the research, however, is to test the proposition that congruency of the value expectations of buyer and seller will optimize the relationship strength.In the literature there seem two general approaches, the hard and the soft. This research combines these measures to form a single, cohesive measurement of congruency of relationship value, from the perspective of both partners in the relationship. There is a lacuna in the burgeoning literature on relationship management, where trust is often inadequately represented in the research, and where reciprocity of value between relationship partners is often omitted. This research addresses this critical, yet under-researched, issue. It also provides a useful, practical, guide to companies desirous of setting up strong relationships with other organizations by explaining the importance of soft value measures and focusing on shared value expectations in these relationships.The quantitative survey was conducted among buyers and sellers in small and medium sized companies in Germany that are operating on an international level. The empirical results strongly support the research thesis. Implications for theory and practice are provided as well as recommendations for further research.

Social capital is embedded in relationships and crucial for facilitating value creation. This study adopts a micro-relational perspective on social capital and addresses the gap in the literature concerning its importance for explaining the management of professional-client relationships. The research provides an in-depth analysis of professional-client relationships, considering both the structure and the attributes, as well as how social capital is utilized by professionals to create and maintain networks with new and existing clients. This research proposes a framework for examining the relationship between human capital and social capital. Human capital is understood as manifested by the extent of knowledge acquisition within three domains: market knowledge, technical knowledge and client-specific knowledge. The outcomes of social capital in professional-client relationships are examined in relation to knowledge acquisition and relationship outcome variables. Professionals employed in knowledge-intensive firms rely on both their human capital and social capital to acquire and commercialize their knowledge to deliver value in their professional services to clients. However, research to-date has insufficiently investigated the relationship between human capital and social capital, and the application of social capital theory to the study of lawyers and law firms, as proposed in this PhD research, draws attention to the importance of these social processes within professional-client relationships. Social capital, in this study, is defined as consisting of two dimensions: structural and attributive. The structural dimension of social capital refers to the idea that networks of actors can influence the outcomes of social relationships, while the attributive dimension of social capital refers to the extent of trust in relationships. Structural perspectives on social capital have been predominant in the literature, but discussion on the attributes of such ties have been lacking. As such, with limited attempts to operationalize the construct of social capital in the literature (Koka and Prescott, 2002) and the differing aspects of social capital considered in empirical investigations (Wu, 2008), existing studies on social capital have been characterized by the lack of consensus on the dimensions that compose social capital as well as the measures of social capital (Bolino et al., 2002; Wu, 2008). The theoretical framework is examined through a triangulation of cross-methods and cross-samples approaches by conducting two studies (qualitative and quantitative as different methods) with different samples. Study 1 is a qualitative study, designed to evaluate the theoretical framework through a set of exploratory interviews with Australian client organizations to reveal their views on the contracting, evaluation and continuation of legal service delivery by external law firms. Many of the organizations included in this study are large and diverse businesses, with in-house departments ranging from those managing a small team to large in-house teams working in a large corporate company. Study 1 is an exploratory investigation of the themes that emerged from the interviews, and its findings provide some preliminary evidence for the various propositions. Study 2 is a quantitative study of survey research of Australian law firms and their client organizations conducted by administering web-based questionnaires to lawyers and their clients. The questionnaire items are designed to measure the constructs presented in the theoretical framework, with data collected using both social network techniques and a conventional Likert-type format of question items. The data are analyzed using a series of statistical regression procedures to test for mediation and the effects of the control variables, as well as by conducting Partial Least Squares (PLS)-based structural equation modeling to examine the relationships between the constructs in the full structural model. The findings from Study 2 indicate support for the hypotheses presented in the theoretical framework. First, the findings support the hypothesis that there is a link between human capital and social capital. Knowledge acquired from all clients, representing the aspect of a professional’s human capital in this context, is significant in influencing both dimensions of social capital. Second, the findings of the study denote that human capital, as represented by knowledge acquired from a professional’s most important client, plays a mediating role in the relationships between social capital and the various relationship outcomes of reputation, referrals, fee income, and relationship continuity. Third, the findings reveal that the construct of the structural dimension of social capital is made up of various components, including: centrality, frequency of communication, nature of communication, the non-redundancy of ties, and network diversity. Finally, the findings also indicate a high reliability score for conceptualizing the attributive dimension of social capital as constituting of three types of trust: rational trust, moral trust, and affective trust. In conclusion, the study provides a useful means of advancing our understanding of the link between social capital, human capital (knowledge acquisition), and relationship outcomes by empirically examining these constructs in the context of professional-client relationships, and by creating a new line of research inquiry into this significant area of strategic management research.

<p>If you look out the window today you can observe influences from all over the world. It seems like the world has shrunken and accessibility has gotten a bigger impact. We are talking about globalization and it can be said to diminish the boarders and unite people all over and contribute to more interactions between different countries and cultures, which in turn will lead to new challenges for companies. More companies can therefore meet in different contexts and for instance a company from Sweden where production costs are comparatively high will be attracted to markets like the Chinese because of their comparatively low production costs. The culture differences between these two nations are wide and will therefore cause implications like cultural clashes or misunderstandings. This is where our interest of the subject grew and hence our research question is:</p><p>“How can Swedes avoid incidents of a cultural descent when developing business relations with Chinese corporations?”</p><p>The main purpose of this study is to get a better comprehension on how businessmen perceive cultural differences in situations where business relationships are essential and how they avoid such incidents. In addition we have in this study divided the main purpose into three sub-purposes. These are: to gain a better understanding on how both Swedes and Chinese build relationships in business-to-business situations, to gain a better understanding of the differences in the Swedish and Chinese business culture, and to provide suggestions for Swedish entrepreneurs in becoming more aware of cultural gaps when entering the Chinese market.</p><p>Our study is based on an hermeneutic approach. We have used an qualitative research strategy where our empirics are based upon seven semi-structured interviews with businessmen today resided in Sweden but have experience from Chinese business interaction. In addition both Swedish and Chinese businessmen have been interviewed to obtain a more balanced data. The contextualization we have made is aligned towards an individual perspective.</p><p>Our theoretical frameworks consist of a wide range of theories such as: business relationships theories, relationship marketing theories, Guanxi theories, cultural theories, and culture clash theories. Based on our empirics we have been able to interlink many aspects to conclusions. These have mainly been differences in the two cultures, such as; difference in hierarchy level and how this has caused implications for Swedish businessmen. It was also showed that there are differences in approaching potential business proposals, where the Swedes tended to be direct in contrast to the Chinese who preferred a slower paste. In addition this study showed that what is referred to as Guanxi is far more linked to the Chinese culture than networking is in Sweden.</p><p>For a Swedish business man these findings can help prevent incident of diversifying range but raise awareness of other cultural aspects that needs to be considered before going to China in business purposes.</p>

If you look out the window today you can observe influences from all over the world. It seems like the world has shrunken and accessibility has gotten a bigger impact. We are talking about globalization and it can be said to diminish the boarders and unite people all over and contribute to more interactions between different countries and cultures, which in turn will lead to new challenges for companies. More companies can therefore meet in different contexts and for instance a company from Sweden where production costs are comparatively high will be attracted to markets like the Chinese because of their comparatively low production costs. The culture differences between these two nations are wide and will therefore cause implications like cultural clashes or misunderstandings. This is where our interest of the subject grew and hence our research question is: “How can Swedes avoid incidents of a cultural descent when developing business relations with Chinese corporations?” The main purpose of this study is to get a better comprehension on how businessmen perceive cultural differences in situations where business relationships are essential and how they avoid such incidents. In addition we have in this study divided the main purpose into three sub-purposes. These are: to gain a better understanding on how both Swedes and Chinese build relationships in business-to-business situations, to gain a better understanding of the differences in the Swedish and Chinese business culture, and to provide suggestions for Swedish entrepreneurs in becoming more aware of cultural gaps when entering the Chinese market. Our study is based on an hermeneutic approach. We have used an qualitative research strategy where our empirics are based upon seven semi-structured interviews with businessmen today resided in Sweden but have experience from Chinese business interaction. In addition both Swedish and Chinese businessmen have been interviewed to obtain a more balanced data. The contextualization we have made is aligned towards an individual perspective. Our theoretical frameworks consist of a wide range of theories such as: business relationships theories, relationship marketing theories, Guanxi theories, cultural theories, and culture clash theories. Based on our empirics we have been able to interlink many aspects to conclusions. These have mainly been differences in the two cultures, such as; difference in hierarchy level and how this has caused implications for Swedish businessmen. It was also showed that there are differences in approaching potential business proposals, where the Swedes tended to be direct in contrast to the Chinese who preferred a slower paste. In addition this study showed that what is referred to as Guanxi is far more linked to the Chinese culture than networking is in Sweden. For a Swedish business man these findings can help prevent incident of diversifying range but raise awareness of other cultural aspects that needs to be considered before going to China in business purposes.

Traditionally, marketers have assumed that investing in the quality of relationships with customers would generate superior profitability to the selling firm. The assumption is that coordination and collaboration between buyer and seller create value for both firms by reducing costs and expanding revenue opportunities. However, such value creation mechanism does not work every time. Closer relationships require customer specific investments and a higher level of service that may create more cost to the seller than the potential gain in revenue, negatively impacting profitability of the selling firm. This research explores the effect of buyer-seller relationship quality on value creation for the selling firm, emphasizing the understanding of costs associated with serving the relationship. Two studies were conducted: Study 1 qualitatively examines the cost associated with serving customers and estimates actual cost-to-serve for individual customers. Study 2 measures the quality of customer relationships, past customer profitability and customer lifetime value for each customer relationship in the proposed sample. Finally, the effect of RQ on customer lifetime value is evaluated. Results suggest that investing in customer relationships have an effect on the drivers of customer cost and profitability. However, the net effect on customer value is not as clear as it depends on the trade offs of the different drivers of cost and profit.

Over several centuries, mining activities have resulted in the creation of varied environmental complications. Most mining activities are carried out in locations with proximity to human settlements. The interplay of mining activity and society has created  several mining-related conflicts throughout the world, and in developing countries especially, these conflicts are much prevalent. These conflicts could be analysed in a variety of ways: analyzing the conflicts based on goals, interests and value interference; or on the bases of issues related to interaction between two or more parties. This paper takes into consideration the two concepts of constructivity and destructivity of conflicts as they relate to natural resource management and indicate that it is possible for a country or society like Ghana to discover constructive potential in a phenomenon that is mostly deemed destructive. The conflict situations in two mining communities (Akyem and Wassa) are taken into consideration for this paper. This does not deal with issues of conflict management, rather, it takes a look into the interaction between these communities and the associated mining company to determine whether the relationship between them possess constructive or destructive potentials. Based on interviews and information available on the internet, this paper determines that there exist elements of constructivity and destructivity in both areas. In the Akyem area, the destructive aspects reside in the relationship between Newmont and the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM). The relationship between Newmont and the local representatives take on a constructive aspect. Even though there is some sort of tension between the local people and Newmont, the situation can still be considered as constructive because they are still able to engage in dialogue in an attempt to coexist. In the Wassa area on the other hand, the story is different thus taken a destructive nature between Golden Star Resources and the communities. The involvement of the government however presents an opportunity for constructivity in the situation.

Thousands of Alumni are in all walks of life in domestic and foreign after graduated. They are not only the important economic supports but also the connections between school and business. However, relationship needs long-term maintenance, and virtual community becomes the brand¡¦s communitive and interactive distributions. In Taiwan, many universities are awared of the trend of community media and established their own virtual alumni associations on Facebook fan page, in order to enhance alumni serving and relationship connecting. This study is a partnership with National Sun yat-sen University¡¦s alumni service center as a case study, analyzing from relationship marketing view point to realize the influence of virtual alumni association management on alumni loyalty. By academic and empirical exploring to observe the excutive status of NSYSU alumni service on Facebook fan page and provide suggestions as a model to those organizations which willing to manage virtual communities to increase loyalty. This study is cooperated with NSYSU¡¦s alumni service center, and collected questionaires by the ¡§filled questionnaire, join lottery¡¨ activity on NSYSU¡¦s alumni service Facebook fan page. Furthermore, researcher also sent email invitations with the link of online questionarie from alumni database, to investigate alumni¡¦s understandings and recommendations of NSYSU¡¦s alumni service Facebook fan page. The study outcomes are as following, relationship marketing has positive influence on relationship quality; relationship quality has positive influence on loyalty; relationship marketing has positive influence on loyalty. Which means virtual community does help maintaining relationship between alumni and school, raising the loyalty. It is an efficiency way to manage the customers¡¦ relationship and loyalty. However, the influence of social bond of relationship marketing strategy on loyalty is not significant. This study conjecture that users can not be awared of the specialties of interactive communications on Facebook fan page since Facebook originally based on the social network. When users feel limited relationship marketing intention and qualities, they can not increase their loyalties.

¡§Loyalty Programs¡¨ is a necessary and important step in the formation of relationship marketing. However, not only been applied in practice but also been researched by academia, there are still some gaps because of lack of a complete frame to analyze the vales of the loyalty programs. Therefore this research aims to fill-in the gaps that past practice and academics have failed by providing a conceptual frame by studying related literatures of loyalty programs and takes advantage of the frame to analyze the relationships among those values, relationship quality and customer loyalty in the telecom industry. The results of this study find that four values of nine values in the frame, including ¡§economic value¡¨, ¡§choice of redemption options¡¨, ¡§relevance¡¨ and ¡§social benefits¡¨ will influence relationship quality and customer loyalty in the telecom industry. However, customers still care more about economic value and relevance. The corporations in the industry can increase customer loyalty by designing high level of economic value and relevance. But if those would like to build higher level of relationship with the customers, they have to take advantage of social benefits through which to build strong and long customers loyalty. Therefore through this frame, the corporations can realize which value they should attach importance to. The results also prove the effectiveness of the loyalty program conceptual frame.